Re: KDE gone, Linux next?
On Tue, Oct 13, 1998 at 01:45:04PM -0400, Brian Ristuccia wrote:
> These commercial sound drivers are a real hassle, since the user must
[valid complaints and security issues elided]
> good hardware support is to Linux's success, I don't consider binary-only
> support good support at all. I'd hate to be stuck in Company X's position.
> I'm sure you'd feel the same way if it was your business on the line.=20
Us, sure. A lot of places, no. Look at the number of businesses
using MS. Obviously they aren't overly concerned about these things.
Heck, when security breaks under MS, for the most part, they don't
*get* a fix, broken drivers or not. But really, these are things best
left to the individual. If a person wants to take the risk, fine.
With MS there is no choice. You have to wait for microsoft to release
a fix - or even wait for NT5 (aka Godot). If we allow Linux to become
monopolised, even if it is just for a particular peice of hardware
then Linux becomes no better then closed source distributions.
FWIW, I shelled out $20 for a commercial OSS license back when
OSS/Free didn't support PNP devices so I could get my AWE64 working,
and haven't regretted it. [...]
Don't expect other comapnies to behave with such good manners. RedHat
recently had to stop distributing TriTeal CDE because they were lax
about fixing security problems. One of Linux's greatest streangths
is that whenever a problem appears there is a hacker somewhere who
wants to fix it straight away. We shouldn't give up this core part
of the system without a fight.
[...] Quite frankly, if companies
providing closed binary-only drivers don't provide decent support
for them, including a new version for every development kernel, I
don't think they're going to be much of a threat, since the general
populace is going to be too irritated to stop writing drivers (which
is really all that concerns us, I think), and other companies will
treat them about with as much support as they treat any other
unsupported product.
As Linux becomes more popular the hardware manufacturers will start
giving away drivers with the hardware, as they do for WIN95/NT/Mac.
If we give them the option to release the drivers as closed source
then most of them will. But if we force them to release as open
source then they'll still release the drivers - because market
demand requires it - but they'll release them as free software
instead. It's a matter of whether open source is important.
In the case of word processors, I could care less. But when
it comes to something like the kernel - something that at times
requires fast bugfixes - it is extreemly important.
Why give them the option to release closed source when we can
force them to release free versions?
--
Matthew Parry
<mettw@bowerbird.com.au>
<URL:http://www.bowerbird.com.au/people/mettw/>
-
"There now, didn't I tell you to keep a good count? Well,
there's and end of the story. God knows there's no going on
with it now." - Sancho Panza.
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